Dennis Kucinich on Jobs

Democratic Representative (OH-10); Democratic Candidate for President

Raise minimum wage to over $8.50

Q: What increases, if any, do you favor in the $5.15 an hour federal minimum wage?

A: I favor restoring the value that has been lost to inflation over the past 35 years,
which would mean a minimum wage of over $8.50. I favor indexing this to automatically keep pace with the cost of living.

Source: Associated Press policy Q&A, "Minimum Wage"
Jan 25, 2004

Cancel tax cuts for the rich

Q: What is job creation plan for young people?

A: First, cancel the Bush tax cuts that went to the people in the top brackets. Second, get the US out of Iraq. Third, cut the Pentagon budget by 15% and put that money into universal pre-kindergarten.
Fourth, take the money from the Bush tax cuts that went to the top bracket and put it into a fund to create universal college education. Fifth, get NASA involved in developing new energy technologies, new environmental technologies.

Source: CNN "Rock The Vote" Democratic Debate
Nov 5, 2003

Rebuild infrastructure with a program like FDR's WPA

On Labor Day, I announced a new initiative, a new initiative which will enable the United States to rebuild its cities in the same way that Franklin Roosevelt rebuilt America during the Depression, called a new WPA-type program,
rebuild our cities, our streets, our water systems, our sewer systems, new energy systems. It's time to rebuild America. We have the resources to do it, we have to have the will to do it.

Source: Democratic Primary Debate, Albuquerque New Mexico
Sep 4, 2003

Shift USDA funds from agribusiness to family farmers

Kucinich will shift USDA funding and focus away from the promotion of concentrated intensive and industrial agribusiness.

New focus will benefit family farmers, rural communities, the environment, and consumers, with policies crafted to enable farmers to earn a fair price and to provide safe, nutritious food to all people.

Labor defends workers when corporations attack

Labor has stood almost alone while corporations have cut wages and benefits, slashed working hours, tried to undermine wage and hour provisions, reneged on contracts, and jettisoned retirements through bankruptcy strategies.
There needs to be equal concern for those who created the wealth through their labor because the attacks on unions are a means of redistributing the wealth upwards.

Labor protections; not binding employer arbitration

In 2001, the US Supreme Court repealed 100 years of labor and civil rights protections and gave employers the right to require mandatory, binding arbitration as a condition of employment.
This repeal meant that anyone seeking a job in America could be required to sign away their civil rights, disability rights, sex discrimination protections, pension rights, and whistleblower rights.

Genetically-engineered food is an issue of freedom of choice

Genetically engineered food represents a challenge to freedom of choice and freedom of expression.
It touches something very deep in all of us that in our striving to consume that we not become less than that which we consume. Country-of-origin labeling will be required.

Address plight of small farmer by canceling NAFTA & WTO

Something's wrong when profits of agribusiness corporations skyrocket, but farmers must find off-farm jobs or sell their farms to survive.
The first act of a Kucinich Administration will be to cancel NAFTA and the WTO, replacing them with bilateral trade agreements designed to benefit family farmers and workers while protecting the health of communities and the environment.

National ban on packer ownership of livestock

Farm worker safety by fining employers

The Kucinich Administration will strengthen and enforce air and water quality laws to safeguard rural communities from factory farm pollution. Kucinich will implement new safety standards in meatpacking and food processing.
Worker health and safety protections will be expanded through increased inspections and fines, with criminal charges for employers who cause injury or death to agricultural industry workers.

Invest in rural America

The Kucinich Administration will initiate a major new program of investment in rural America, putting thousands to work rebuilding invaluable public assets such as schools, hospitals, libraries, swimming pools and parks.
Teachers, doctors, veterinarians, and other important service providers will be offered incentives to work in under-served areas.

Enshrine workers' rights in a workers' White House

As president I'll make sure that workers' rights are enshrined in a workers' White House. Because workers have a right to organize, a right to bargain collectively, a right to strike, a right to compensation if you're injured on the job. Certainly a
right to fair wages and fair benefits.

As president, I'll issue an executive order which will say that anyone who gets a federal contract will have to provide that when 50 percent of the workers sign up for a union, there's an automatic union.

Source: AFSCME union debate in Iowa
May 17, 2003

Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction

I ask this administration: "Tell me Mr. Bush, where are those weapons of mass destruction?" I've seen those weapons and I'll tell you where they are. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction.
Hopelessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Let's bring back hope in America. Let's bring back jobs in America. Let's bring back workers' rights in America.

Source: AFSCME union debate in Iowa
May 17, 2003

Engrave into stone the rights of working people

The soul of the worker is not for sale. It will not be sacrificed upon the corporate altar, nor annihilated by a hostile or indifferent government. The soul of the worker will be redeemed by the enshrinement in law of workers' rights.
If in 2004 Labor goes up to the mountaintop of our nation's capital, it must bring back, engraved in stone, the rights of working people:

Voted NO on $167B over 10 years for farm price supports.

Vote to authorize $167 billion over ten years for farm price supports, food aid and rural development. Payments would be made on a countercyclical program, meaning they would increase as prices dropped. Conservation acreage payments would be retained.

Voted NO on zero-funding OSHA's Ergonomics Rules instead of $4.5B.

Vote to pass a resolution to give no enforcement authority or power to ergonomics rules submitted by the Labor Department during the Clinton Administration. These rules would force businesses to take steps to prevent work-related repetitive stress disorders.

Rated 100% by the AFL-CIO, indicating a pro-labor voting record.

Kucinich scores 100% by the AFL-CIO on labor issues

As the federation of America’s unions, the AFL-CIO includes more than 13 million of America’s workers in 60 member unions working in virtually every part of the economy. The mission of the AFL-CIO is to improve the lives of working families to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our nation. To accomplish this mission we will build and change the American labor movement.

The following ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.